Arc 5-Winter War-49
“As you’ve seen,” I say in a nonchalant tone as if I don’t notice their disbelief, “along with my casting abilities, I am very strong and durable. So much so that I can confidently say that without magical aide, no one in the Hall can match in strength or speed.”
“How?” Marthe asks. “Are you even human?”
No. “Of course I am. This is simply a benefit of being married to a battle maniac with a pure physical affinity.”
“Pardon , Lady To,” William says carefully, far more tense than usual. Poor guy can’t look in the eye. “I recognize what a pure affinity is but I don’t understand how that explains your…display.”
“Willie, Willie, Willie.” That statent doesn’t make sense. A pure affinity explains everything. “How about you, Marthe? Do you know what a pure affinity is?”
“Are you calling stupid?” She sneers. Soone isn’t cowled by my strength. Or at the very least, she is much better at hiding it. “A pure affinity allows soone to use an affinity without constructing a spell.”
“Just making sure you were paying attention in your initiate classes. As the lady said—”
“Who are you calling a lady?!”
I gape at her. Only Marthe would take that as an insult. “As the feral girl said, pure affinities allow soone to use magic without spells. They simply conjure events through pure willpower and imagination. That ans anything the physical affinity can do, my wife can as well. Without a series of complicated variables and coefficients. Buffing, healing, magic farming—”
“lding,” he says in awe. “She’s a—”
“Alright, we’re not discussing this anymore,” I say sharply. “What she can or cannot do is unimportant. All that matters is what I bring to this team. I only explained this much so you aren’t concerned that throwing around Arthur’s giant was a gimmick of so sort.” I grin. “If you have any doubts, we can have a small spar ourselves.”
“There’s no need for you to fight again,” Alana says bitterly.
“Aw. I thought for sure you’d want to try .”
She glares at before turning her attention toward the house. “…is he going to be alright?”
“You worried about him?”
“He may be a pig but I don’t want him dead.”
“I didn’t kill him. That’d be illegal.” And more trouble than it’s worth.
She gives a dubious look that says she doesn’t believe my law-abiding act. “I have a good idea what Marthe can do but I’d like to see your skills, William.”
“Yes…yes, of course.” William makes a valiant effort to recover from recent events. He removes his glasses, holding them with indecision until Bell pulls his pants leg. “Coo~”
He jumps before scratching his neck in embarrassnt. “Oh. Hello?”
I feel an urge to roll my eyes. “Bell may be the size of a child but she is quite intelligent. Give them to her.”
He hesitantly hands the expensive tool to my imp before nervously straightening his shirt. “Combat is not my specialty. Please go easy on .”
Alana’s bad mood softens and she gives him a friendly smile. “Do your best.”
“Yes, do your best,” I echo, trying not to feel bitter. Really, it’s just a smile. She’s being nice to him because he looks like a harsh word will break him in two. Besides, he’s not her type. He can’t be. She’s grown up around tough n and wants to fight monsters for a living. She couldn’t possibly be interested in soone with twigs for arms and pasty skin.
…could she?
[Would you like to know, Master Lou?]
No I would not, you little ball of temptation. I am not threatened by him. I refuse to be.
They take a dueling distance from one another. Alana draws her sword, holding it in that distinctive stance that points the blade behind her. “Ready?”
“One mont if you would.” His fingers move to push up his glasses before he realizes they aren’t there, his hand awkwardly falling to his side. “This won’t be much of a competition if we abide by the standard rules, of which there is no casting before the duel. I am embarrassed to admit that I am too slow at conjuring water to do so before losing a fight to anyone, let alone yourself.”
Too slow? A spell’s speed is determined by both the spell and the amount of mana used to power it. For my fire affinity, I can just use the variable for fire and a fla appears. If I want to make a larger fla, I can either use variables to describe the size or use a higher mana coefficient.
Conjuring water is a bit more complicated but if he’s so slow he needs to ask for a mont, he either doesn’t know the variables for the amount he wants or has a small coefficient that makes him leery about throwing his power behind it.
Honestly, this tells everything I need to know about his combat ability but Alana graciously allows it. “Fair enough. Go ahead.”
“I am obliged.” William closes his eyes as he concentrates. Saints. That’s a terrible habit. How does he expect to win a fight if he has to close his eyes every ti he uses a spell?
“Coo!” Bell scales my body and settles on my shoulders, little hands in my hair. [You are too unkind, Master Lou. They are initiates, babes amongst casters. They can hardly be expected to be competent. The pirate boy is an exception, having already experienced years of combat. Your sun is inexperienced but has been training for far longer. William is what I would expect of the average initiate.]
Really?
[You often forget how unusual your circumstances are.]
I suppose. After my rebirth, the first being I contended with was Kierra. Being chased around day after day by that crazy woman did not make feel powerful. Besides her, I spend my days with Geneva, whose knowledge makes question my intelligence, and Bell, who can easily rival the kingdom’s strongest casters. My benchmarks for asuring strength are extrely skewed.
All I can think as I watch a ball of water slowly forming in front of him is how vulnerable he is. It’s hard to rember that he is only at the beginning of his life as a caster. He’s further ahead than most having been accepted into the Hall.
Saints, he’s got an advantage over most of the kingdom who either don’t have the talent or the resources to be a caster. In any of the small villages that dot the countryside, they’d marvel at the spell I’m ntally deriding with wide eyes and treat him like the highest of nobility.
After five minutes, the ball of water is as wide as his chest. William sighs deeply. “I am prepared now, Lady Jas.”
“It’s Alana.” Her body tenses. “On your mark, Lou.”
“If both fighters are ready…begin!”
To my surprise, Alana doesn’t start with her usual blinding tactic, or any other spell. She simply runs toward him in a straight line. The reason cos to quickly. It’s the sa reason I didn’t jump into Arthur’s cloud of dirt. This is supposed to be a demonstration of what he can do. There’s no point if he loses imdiately.
I’m relieved that William doesn’t close his eyes as he casts his next spell. The ball of water in front of him trembles as three fist-sized balls globules separate from the whole. I watch as they slowly condense, shrinking to half their size. Excellent control. But it’s slow, far too slow. He might not notice but I can tell Alana slows down to give him more ti to complete his spell.
My opinion of William’s ability changes when he launches his first attack. The small ball of water moves through the air at a speed that is impressive given his previous display. I see Alana’s eyes widen as she quickly sidesteps the attack, speeding up her charge.
William throws the other two balls of water, launching the second a mont after the first. Alana dodges the first but has to block the second with her arm. She winces as her limb is pushed back and her eyes narrow. Oh, she’s not underestimating him anymore.
And William is not the slouch I thought he was. He uses the mont Alana hesitates to mold the rest of the water into a crescent shape. A lumpy one. He doesn’t have the ti to mold it properly before she is on him and he’s forced to release it.
The wave is just as fast as his little balls but Alana’s prepared. In an amazing display of flexibility, Alana bends over nearly backward to dodge the wave of water aid for her chest. She turns to keep her montum, continuing her dash without a pause. Her sword snaps out, stopping right against his neck. A drop of blood wells from the shallow cut.
He swallows and slowly raises his hands. “I surrender.”
“Mm.” She pulls back her sword, running the edge over her pants to clean off the small drops of blood on it. “Your spells are basic but they’re good,” she complints as she sheathes the blade. “You’re right, though. Fighting isn’t your specialty.”
He chuckles self-depreciatingly as they walk toward us. “Few water casters outside of Graywatch dream of fighting monsters.”
“Then what is your dream?” I ask. Maybe a touch harshly from the way he ducks his head.
“Eh-hem. I want to be a sculptor.”
“…with the water affinity?” I could understand if he were an earth caster but…
“I know what you’re thinking. My brothers looked at the sa way. It is a bit untraditional but sculpting with the water affinity allows to use more diums than stone. Certain alchemical liquids can ‘cut’ better than saws or chisels, working just as well on stone as they do wood or even gems. Not to ntion the potential of ice sculptures. Truly, a marvelous field though it requires the cooperation of a fire caster or an artifact capable of controlling temperature.”
His eyes are shining as he rambles on about his passion, more energetic than I’ve ever seen him. He reminds of my gardener and the tiny resentnt I’ve been nurturing disappears. How can anyone hate that excited smile? “You’ll have to show your work. The house could use a few more decorations.” The only ones we have are Gajin’s bouquets and Kierra’s skulls.
“Of course! I can only work on small pieces with the lack of space in our dorms but recently I’ve been—”
“Talk about your date later,” Alana snaps. “We should talk strategy.”
I try to catch her eyes as she heads for the table but she turns her head. Your voice sounded a bit frosty, my friend. Almost like when I thought you were being too friendly. Don’t like the idea of spending any alone ti with a boy?
Saints bless with with patience, why does she insist on playing this ga? “Bell, give Willie his fras and drag Arthur over here.”
Alana tries to take the end seat but I counter her strategy by grabbing it and placing it next to another chair. She glares at but sits down in the new position, side-eyeing as I take place beside her.
“To be clear,” I whisper. “He could make a work of art beautiful enough to make the saints shed golden tears from the heavens and I still wouldn’t be interested in him.”
“I don’t care.”
“Of course you don’t. I’m simply making a little conversation. More random conversation, do you want to go shopping with ?”
She blinks, finally turning toward . “What?”
“I’m going to assu you aren’t one for nighties? What do you usually sleep in?”
“I—” She pauses, her face flushing.
I really want to know what she was going to say but there’s no chance of that. “You’re not going to disrespect our beautiful bed by climbing into it wearing the sa clothes you swing a sword in. So, shopping? On my purse.”
“As if. You’re trying to get into sothing shaful.”
“Always, but don’t worry. The choice is yours. I’ll just be there to throw away my money.” I scoff at her disbelieving look. “I’m trying to get you into bed, not drive you away. Is it so wrong that I don’t want to turn over and rub against an oversized, rough, linen shirt? It’s a perfectly innocent request.”
“Nothing is innocent with you.” She sighs. “But I suppose this is relatively harmless. Besides, there’s other things I need.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I…” She gives an indecipherable look. “I was thinking I might spend the gap months until our acolyte year back ho. At Fort Victory.”
I suck in a sharp breath but before I can respond, Marthe smoothly interrupts. "Are we done here?"
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